6/28/08 – Hanshin ("Home" at Akita)

The Swallows resumed their Central League program with a hammering at the hands of league leaders Hanshin on Saturday night.

Hanshin outhit Yakult 15 to 5 with Toritani’s four hit performance (which included a homer and 2 RBIs) being the highlight for the Tigers.

Yakult’s starter was Ishikawa, and he had a poor evening by his standards this season, giving up 9 hits, but only 3 runs over his six innings of work. He got no run support from the birds due to Hanshin starter Shimoyanagi having an exellent night, giving up just 4 hits and 1 run over his six innings. Kubota, Williams and Watanabe would then restrict the Swallows to just one more run over the last three innings.

The only real offense from Yakult came from two solo homers from Aoki, in the 4th and 9th innings.

Ishikawa’s record now stands at 7 wins, 5 losses with an ERA of 2.215

Yakult now play one more game against the Tigers in Akita on Sunday afternoon.

David is a baseball bothering Brummie who spends a fair portion of his life fretting over the Tokyo Swallows and the WORLD'S GREATEST FOOTBALL TEAM, Aston Villa. He completes the quartet of abusive sporting relationships by being a die hard New York Knicks and Mets fan. You can find him on twitter: @yakulto

Igarashi’s getting lots of strikeouts (15 in 8 IP) but also giving up lots of hits (12) along with a couple of walks. Just bad luck, or his fast fast ball just zooms straight into the middle of the plate?

Yikes, 15 hits by Hanshin.

And yeah, the fact that Tigers starters only have to go 6 innings with their superb bullpen makes it real tough on their opponents… ouch.